


It's an Alien Abduction, Charlie Brown

by Northern_Lady



Category: Peanuts
Genre: Alien Abduction, Autism Spectrum, Bullying, Science Fiction, Short Chapters, Teen Romance, Teen Years, teen drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 06:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Lady/pseuds/Northern_Lady
Summary: Charlie is a junior in high school when Snoopy goes missing. His childhood friends become invested in efforts to find the lost dog.





	It's an Alien Abduction, Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown got out of bed for another day of school. It was early in his junior year of high school but late enough to have already gotten the news that he did not make the football team, again. He didn’t mind too terribly much. He was disappointed and sad of course but life was like that, disappointing and sad. Making the football team probably wouldn’t have changed that reality. He pulled on a pair of black cargo shorts and his favorite yellow t-shirt. He stopped in the bathroom long enough to brush his teeth before running his fingers through his longish wispy brown hair and ran downstairs to feed Snoopy before rushing off to school. 

“Charlie, don’t forget your breakfast!” His mom called out as he filled a metal scoop with dry dog food and ran out to the fenced in backyard to feed his beloved pet. 

Charlie dumped the scoop of food into the dish next to the dog house and grabbed the water dish to refill with the garden hose. Snoopy did not emerge from his house too eat. 

“Snoopy?” Charlie called out. The old beagle didn’t come out. Charlie knelt down and took a look in the dog house. It was empty. 

He looked around the yard panicked, looking for places in the fence where there might have been a hole or an opening. Everything about the backyard looked normal except for one thing. There was a three foot circular patch of yellow grass in one spot. 

“So it wasn’t a dream...” Charlie said aloud. 

**

Schroder sat at the piano in the band room as he did at every free period. Everyone else spent study halls and free periods socializing but socializing was a skill that he couldn’t always make sense of. He had been told years ago that this was because he was on the autistic spectrum. He had been encouraged to make more efforts to understand the people around him and try to fit in but he had found it difficult to care enough to really try. They simply weren’t as interesting as Beethoven and piano were. Only Charlie Brown had ever accepted that about him and as such Charlie remained one of his good friends. 

He was just finishing up a piece when she wandered in. Lucy van Pelt hadn’t come to visit him in weeks and he had almost hoped she had given up. Apparently he had been wrong. Everyone said she was pretty, that she had perfect long dark hair and wore the best fashions, often in shades of blue, but Schroder had never quite been able to make sense of her or why she kept asking him on dates every few weeks. Charlie hadn’t been able to explain it to him either. 

Lucy wandered in a sat down in one of the band chairs. She had long ago stopped leaning on the piano after he had yelled at her about it often enough. She crossed her legs and watched him, her high heeled shoes moving just off beat enough to frustrate him into stopping his song before it was truly finished. 

“What do you want Lucy?” 

“I think your friend Charlie is crazy.” 

“Undoubtedly. What makes you say so this time?” He asked, just hoping she would get to the point and be done with it. 

“Well, Charles says that Snoopy is missing and that aliens abducted him.” 

Schroder closed his sheet music book and turned on the piano bench to face her. “Snoopy is missing?” 

“He probably just ran off,” Lucy said with a roll of her eyes. “But Sally told Linus and Linus told me that it was aliens that got Snoopy.” 

“I highly doubt it,” Schroder grabbed his sheet music and got to his feet. He was gonna go find Charlie and find out about this from a more reliable source. 

“Schroder wait?” she called after him. 

He stopped short, not turning to face her, dreading the impending request. 

“Next week is the fall formal. I don’t have a date yet. Have you asked anyone to go with you?” 

“I have not,” he said. “The music at those kinds of assemblies tends to be pointless and repetitive, lacking all depth. I won’t be going.” And he fled the room. 

**

Sally Brown couldn’t focus in class. Snoopy may have been her big brother’s dog but she loved that beagle too. And the truth was, she’d heard some weird noises last night just like Charlie had. She had seen some strange lights from her window and had went out that morning and looked at the yellow patch of grass in their backyard. She wasn’t really aware of what was even said in class. Freshman Social Studies was boring enough as it was. The teacher’s voice was like some monotone noise that made little sense. The class bell rang and her boyfriend Linus van Pelt met her in the hallway, a stack of papers in hand. 

“I made these for you,” he passed her a bundle of missing dog posters. 

“Thanks Linus,” she took the pages, her eyes welling up with tears. “You’re always so thoughtful.” 

He shrugged off the compliment. “I have to walk the kid brother home from school this afternoon. Once you’re done with cheer leading practice wanna go hang these posters?” 

She nodded. “Yes. Definitely. Maybe Charlie will help.” 

**

After school Marcie sat on the sidelines of the gym studying while her friend Patty practiced basketball with the rest of her team. Peppermint Patty was the perfect athlete. Marcie would never be like her nor would Patty ever be able to compete with Marcie academically. But at least Patty played sports because she wanted to. Marcie studied hard because her parents wanted her to. Truthfully, Marcie did enjoy reading. A good book was better than any ball game but the pressure of having to always make perfect grades was always there weighing her down and taking all the joy out of life. That and the fact that Charlie Brown never noticed her. All he could see was that stupid redhead Heather Carlin and Heather was too busy with her girl scouts and bake sales to ever realize that such a great guy was even interested in her. Marcie certainly wasn’t going to point the truth out to Heather. It was better for everyone if that redhead remained oblivious and in the dark. 

Basketball practice ended and Patty made her way over to where Marcie sat on the bleachers. Patty was sweaty and in uniform, her brown hair pulled into the single long braid she had worn it in since eighth grade. 

“I gotta shower and then I could walk home with you,” her friend offered. 

“No thanks sir,” she said. Marcie had called Patty sir since they were very small and Marcie had been unsure if Patty were a boy or a girl. The title had somehow stuck after all these years as more of a pet name than anything else. “I don’t really wanna go home yet.” 

Patty took a seat on the bleachers next to her. “Something is wrong?” 

“It’s nothing, it’s just...” she hadn’t really expressed to anyone how much pressure she was under to have the perfect academic performance, not since she was a kid. 

“Well we don’t have to go home yet. We can help Chuck look for his missing dog.” 

“Snoopy is missing?” 

“Yeah, I guess Chuck went out to feed the dog this morning and he was gone.” 

“Then we should help look. Poor snoopy. Poor Charles...” Marcie was on her feet, gathering up her books and backpack to go join in the search efforts. 

**


End file.
